


Your Broken Crown

by SomeEnchantedEve



Series: And if you want me, I'm your country [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Pre-Series, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:53:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1293754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeEnchantedEve/pseuds/SomeEnchantedEve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a different world where Robert Baratheon wed Catelyn Tully at the end of the Rebellion, it still all comes down to a king, a queen, and a knight of the Kingsguard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Broken Crown

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a slow burn, people - you have been warned! ;-) Hope you enjoy!

For a fortnight when she was seven years old, Catelyn thought that she might quite like to be a queen. 

It had lasted no longer than a fortnight, as fantastical as pretending to be a mermaid, or a woods witch. Her brother had been born a few moons past, and though she had been glad of his birth and her parents’ joy in him, there had been a tiny piece of her – a treacherous, undutiful part – that had been resentful of being usurped, that was painfully aware that now she would have to leave Riverrun when she was a woman grown, rather than rule it in her own right. Perhaps the flight of fancy had been her own little rebellion, a child’s protest – in any case, it did no harm. She made crowns of white lilies and yellow daffodils, claimed a long river reed as her scepter, and promised a giggling Lysa and baby Edmure that she would be a benevolent ruler. 

Her uncle had humored her, and called her ‘Your Grace’ for a moon’s turn, though he surely must have known by then that Catelyn’s father was already making inquiries about the heir of Winterfell. Her father would have never sought a match with the Targaryens for either of his daughters anyway, not with the tales of the king’s madness leaking from the capital and spreading across the kingdoms. 

Hoster Tully had not joined the Rebellion seeking a crown for his daughter, as Tywin Lannister had, yet it brings one to her anyway. 

What it does not bring her is joy. 

\--

King’s Landing is crowded, overflowing with petitioners and peddlers, with minor lords and ladies jockeying for position, with maidservants and stewards and knights. And yet, despite the overwhelming press of people that surrounds her at all times, Catelyn finds it nearly unbearably lonely. 

It should not be so – there are a gaggle of ladies whose sole duty is to see to her every wish, to follow in the wake of her footsteps like obedient ducklings, to fill her chambers with laughter and song. Her own sister is chief amongst them, as befitting the wife of the Hand of the King, closer than Catelyn ever thought to be able to have her, when she thought she would go north rather than south. Often, Catelyn finds herself thinking of her father, and how glad he must be, how proud, to have his two girls in the highest places in the land. Yet the distance between those two places feels nearly insurmountable at times, and Catelyn does not miss the gleam of resentment in Lysa’s eyes when she bows her head and addresses Catelyn as ‘Your Grace.’ It is only her uncle, still the Blackfish even as he dons a white cloak, who remains unchanging and still calls her ‘Little Cat.’ 

Once, she thought to find companionship in her husband. Robert had reminded her so much of Brandon at first – tall and handsome, with wild tempers, quick to joy and quick to anger – and that familiarity had been a soothing balm to her grieving soul at the beginning. But while she had come to terms with the loss of her betrothed, Robert never had stopped grieving for Lyanna Stark. Catelyn is nothing like Lyanna, in looks nor temperament. It is something that Robert has resented for the entirety of their three year marriage, measuring his wife of flesh and blood against the fantasy love that exists solely in his head. 

And Catelyn, for her part, cannot quite forgive Robert for their wedding night, for climbing drunkenly on top of her and slurring _’Lyanna’_ in her ear as he took her maidenhead. She had frozen beneath him, and laid still while he finished, and she had tried not to think of what it meant that Robert Baratheon, infamous in his lusts and conquests even then, had needed to drink himself into a stupor to consummate their marriage. 

At times, Catelyn thinks she hates Lyanna Stark, and she is then disgusted at her jealous heart, to resent a girl dead before her time. It is why she first seeks out Eddard Stark, her almost-betrothed, Robert’s dearest and most faithful friend; though there are times that it would be easy to hate him, too – for surviving the war when Brandon did not, for handing her off like a parcel when Robert asked him to join his Kingsguard. But he is also the only one who will speak plainly of Lady Lyanna – the good and the bad, the truth and not the legend that largely remains. 

She does not often see Ser Eddard. He is most often assigned to keep the company of the king, and Catelyn knows that Ser Eddard is one of the few people left in the world that her husband truly loves. But upon occasion, Robert sends him as her own guard, and it is those times that she bids him to walk with her. She slips her hand in the crook of his elbow, and her ladies follow at a respectable distance – far enough to give them the illusion of privacy, but close enough to act as chaperone. To Catelyn, the idea that honorable, respectable Eddard Stark would need to be chaperoned is nearly laughable. 

“Tell me of your sister, ser,” she always asks, and he always looks so damnably sorry when she does. Robert’s longing for his lost love is no secret from the court, and certainly Ser Eddard would know more than anyone how much the king would prefer a different queen at his side. But despite his discomfort, he will always acquiesce, recalling stories from his youth, of a wild girl who grew into a bold young woman. 

He is always fond in his remembrances, but fair, as well; their mother had died when Lyanna was young, Ser Eddard tells her, and Lyanna had often been spoiled and indulged, and gone too long without a lady’s influence. Catelyn thinks of her own mother, at that, knowing all too well that particular pain. 

After Ser Eddard’s stories, Catelyn finds it harder to hate Lyanna Stark. She also finds that the Lyanna that Robert likes to reminisce about bears little resemblance to the one Eddard speaks of. The real Lyanna, she suspects, would be as much of a disappointment to Robert as Catelyn herself is, and when she realizes that, Catelyn finds it much harder to hate her mere memory. Rather, she feels an odd sort of kinship, when Robert’s eyes glaze and he mentions the girl who died alone in a tower, at how far they both are from the king’s fantasies. 

Winter is not yet ended but the capital is mild, warmer than even Riverrun. Once she had thought to go north, and she wonders how much snow there is now in Winterfell. She does not ask Eddard – to ask would feel too intimate, would brush too close to the truth of what they could have been to one another, and that is a subject best avoided. _He must miss his home, as I miss mine,_ she thinks, and not for the first time, she marvels at his devotion to Robert – to give up his home, his inheritance, a family of his own, all to wear a white cloak and guard the back of his king and friend. He is a good man, an honorable man, and such a thing seems to be a rarity in these Seven Kingdoms – in the capital in particular.

“He did not want to marry me,” she mentions to him one morning. She leaves it at that; she has no desire to discuss the intimate details of her marriage, but Ser Eddard had made mention of the king’s growing unhappiness, with all the concern of a man watching his brother slip away. Even then, she fears she has spoken too much – her entire life, she has been taught to bear her wifely duties silently and with dignity. She means it not as a complaint, but as an explanation; in truth, Robert Baratheon is not the worst man she could have married, but nor is she blind to the fact that she is not the woman he wants, and thus he will never be happy with her. 

Ser Eddard frowns – frowns seem to come so much easier to his face than smiles; she thinks she could count on one hand the number of times she has seen his smile. “That isn’t so, Your Grace,” he counters. “He chose you above all other ladies. Tywin Lannister was most keen to have him wed his daughter.” 

Her lips twist into a mocking smile. “Not all other ladies, ser,” she replies, and she feels him stiffen beneath the touch of her fingers on his arm as the ghost of his sister materializes between them. But she has moved part hatred, past bitterness, to sorrowful acceptance. She does not blame him for any of it, for Robert’s passion for his sister nor the death of his brother, though it would be easier if she could do so, if she had an outlet for her pain and frustration. But Eddard is above all a fair, honest man, and she cannot bring herself to ascribe blame he does not deserve. She suspects that he carries enough undue guilt without her adding to his burden. 

There are times she allows herself to wonder how different things would be, had Lyanna Stark lived and thus become Robert’s queen. What sort of ruler would she be, in face of a husband who came to their marriage with all sorts of ideas as to the woman she was, when pitted against the Small Council who indulged the king’s every whim, no matter how extravagant and costly? The common folk of King’s Landing hail Catelyn pleasantly and warmly, for the most part, but would Queen Lyanna have been more beloved? How could she not be, the girl for whom a war was fought? She would be worshipped simply to justify the loss of life. 

She stops at wondering where that would have left her. Catelyn has learned the folly in imagining what her own life might be; perhaps, if she had not imagined her life with Brandon in Winterfell, she would not have felt the pain of his death quite so keenly. There may be a crown on her head, but she is still a Tully, and she will accept her lot – honorably, dutifully – rather than spare a thought for what could have been. 

But though she had always known her marriage would be made for advantage, not for love, she thinks she could have easily grown to love Brandon, and perhaps he would have loved her in return. On the days she is particularly lonely, she thinks she could have grown to love his brother, too, had he not chosen duty to the realm over a home of his own. He is a good man, Eddard Stark, and she thinks they might have been happy. 

Even for a dutiful girl, a life without love is a difficult one to accept. 

\--

They are married for almost three years when the first babe comes, so much the image of his father that the only thing to name him is Robb. But for all of his Baratheon looks, Robb is _her_ son, and Catelyn loves him more than she has ever loved anyone or anything in her life. 

For some time following the birth, things are better, happier. It is hard to feel anything but glad and grateful when she lays her eyes on her tiny son, and despite the strain that has always existed between them, she feels affection bubble forth for Robert when she thinks that he has given Robb to her. Her babe is big, strong and healthy, with thick dark hair and piercing blue eyes, and Catelyn thinks he must be the most beautiful creature the gods put upon the earth. 

She would love her son for his miniature perfection alone, for being her own sweet babe, but she also knows that his birth – the birth of a healthy prince – more firmly secures her position. A king without an heir is a king easily displaced, and a queen unable to _provide_ those heirs may find herself quickly put aside. She has done her duty, to her husband and her realm, and surely many more healthy sons would follow. 

Robert spends little time with the babe at first. Catelyn knows he already has fathered a few bastards, in the Stormlands and the Vale, and he is easily bored of the utter helplessness of an infant. She knows she should be angry at his neglect on Robb’s behalf, but instead she enjoys the peace of being left alone with her son. She takes personal charge of overseeing her son’s care, and takes on tasks that would be better served to the legion of nursemaids on hand. More often than not, she sends the wet nurse away, arguing that her breasts hurt and she must let the babe suckle to ease her pain, as part of a cunning ruse to keep her son to herself. When Robb grows a bit, and he begins to develop his own little personality, Robert’s interest is momentarily piqued, though normally in ways that horrify Cat – he throws the baby high into the air, lets him gum at the handle of his famed war hammer, bounces him on his knee upon that horrid throne of swords. 

But his attentions fade as spring finally arrives and Robb learns to take his first steps on wobbly, fat little legs, clutching her fingers as his lifeline. The resentment does come this time, for Robb is old enough turn his big, blue eyes in search of his father, and yet far too young to understand that the king is far more interested in hunting or whoring than spending time with his son. Much the way a child will tire of a toy, her husband is bored of their son. And unlike his whores and milkmaids, she does not disappear with the child when his interest wanes. 

It is Ser Eddard who tries to reassure her, tries to convince her that Robert will come around to fatherhood. “It is new to him,” he tells her, and she smiles wanly, choosing to silently admire his devotion to his friend and king rather than remind him that Robb may be his first legitimate child, but she is well aware that there are others, tucked away throughout the Seven Kingdoms. 

She tries to tell herself that it does not matter, that she will love her son enough to make up for Robert’s disinterest, but she knows it is merely a lie she uses to try and soothe herself. She knows well enough how important a father’s love is, and better than many how keenly a child will feel the absence of a parent. She wonders, at times, if Robert would have better loved the children Lyanna would have given him, simply by virtue of being hers. His lack of interest in Robb has nothing to do with the child himself; Catelyn is certain there could be no boy more beautiful, more sweet-tempered. Robb is a child who is easy to love, and the fact that Robert does not seem to do so sours Catelyn more towards him than any slight he has ever done her in the past, than every previous dishonor and disappointment. 

She pushes her bitterness down deep inside her, freezing it hard around her heart. She smiles graciously at Robert’s side, she greets lords and common folk alike, and she meets with the Small Council in Robert’s continued absence, despite the chagrin of the council members who think a woman should have no say in matters of ruling. But though she keeps on dutifully, honorably, she does so with a cold heart, and tells herself it is better this way. If she hardens herself to the perpetual disappointments that her marriage brings, perhaps after a time she will no longer notice them. She reminds herself that her marriage has brought honor to her house, as she was always meant to, and she forces thoughts of Brandon Stark and his wicked, teasing smiles and quick wit from her mind. 

The only time she softens and thaws is the time she spends with Robb. For his third birthday, he is presented with a tiny sword, encrusted in gems and precious stones – supposedly from his father, though Catelyn sees that Robert looks just as surprised as Robb himself does at the gift. Robb beams and throws his arms around his father, beaming with pleasure and full of enthusiastic exclamations, and his little face crumples into a pout when Catelyn pulls the sword from his reach. 

“ _My_ present,” he insists, pulling at the hem of her gown, looking up at her with bright blue eyes swimming with indignant tears. 

“A sword is not a toy,” she tells him testily, and her eyes wander about the room, seeking the true culprit – Varys gazes back at her with a bland smile, and she instinctively bristles. “You may have it when you know how to use it properly – which will not be for many years yet.” 

Robb looks beseechingly at his father, but Robert’s attention is already diverted, already wandering the hall for the next fair maiden that he will court for the evening, and no longer than that. At his side, Ser Eddard clears his throat. “Perhaps the prince is ready to start his training with a wooden sword,” he suggests, and Catelyn’s frown deepens. 

“He is but three,” she protests, but though Robert may be deaf and blind to her words and her son’s pleading eyes, Eddard Stark’s voice is enough to drawn him momentarily back to the conversation. Robert narrows his eyes at her. 

“A boy is never too young to learn how to defend himself,” Robert declares. “And a future king, even more so.” 

“I am not too young!” Robb echoes earnestly, reaching out with his chubby little hands, trying to reclaim his prize. Robert smiles, pleased at the boy’s eagerness, but Robb’s excitement nearly brings tears to Catelyn’s eyes. She remembers so vividly when he was a babe at her breast, when she would press kisses to those soft, tiny hands, and to see him so anxious to raise sword and shield is enough to break her heart. _Nothing but sorrow lies that way, sweetling,_ she thinks sadly. 

As though he can sense her silent torment, Ser Eddard’s hand lands on her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “Do not fear, Your Grace,” he tells her gently. “I will train the lad myself, and exercise the upmost care.” His lips curl into the briefest hint of a smile – it is so rare to see him smile, and his face is so completely transformed when he does that it still takes Catelyn aback. “I taught Benjen first how to spar – and Lyanna, at her insistence. I know how to tread carefully.” 

She purses her lips, still displeased. But the king has taken his decision, his attention wandering again now that he considers the matter settled, and Robb is looking at her so hopefully. “Very well,” she reluctantly agrees, and she studies Ser Eddard’s face closely. _He has an honest face,_ she thinks. He is unlike Brandon in that sense – Brandon had a handsome face, but his smile always had a mischievous secret to it, one that she had hoped to one day discover. Eddard’s face is less handsome, but open, truthful, and in a court of liars and flatterers, she appreciates that quality more than she could ever say. “I am trusting him to your care. I am trusting you,” she repeats, with a hint of warning to it, even as Robb cheers and dances around her legs. 

“I will not disappoint you,” Ser Eddard promises. He says it with such gravity that Catelyn almost believes it. 

Yet a voice in the back of her head reminds her, warns her - _life is always full of disappointments._

\--

Ser Eddard is an unending well of patience, and Catelyn is grateful for it. 

Even she can admit that Robb is not the most ideal of pupils. There is a restlessness to her boy that manifested as soon as he learned how to walk; at times she would swear that he is ‘Ours is the Fury’ made flesh. Young as he is, he does not have the patience for true training yet, but that does not stop him from asking every day if he may use a real sword, while he reaches with eager fingers for the sword sheathed at Ser Eddard’s hip. And each morning, Ser Eddard smiles at him and tells him not yet, but surely soon if he kept at his practices. 

There are times his denial angers Robb; his temper is quick as his father’s, and he flings the wooden sword into the dust, pouting like he has been denied a treat. Ser Eddard is always calm but firm in response, reminding him that he is a prince - _practically a man grown_ he says, and Catelyn must hide her smile at the way Robb’s little chest puffs at that – and therefore must act as so. “A prince does not cry when he does not get his way,” the knight tells him sternly. “He must be an example to his people, a man of honor and a pillar of strength.”

Robb’s little tantrums are easily soothed by such solemn reminders, over as quickly as they came, and he picks up the wooden sword again. He only then complains when Catelyn forces him to stop for the day, and all the way back to her chambers she listens to his accomplishments with a smile as though she did not see them for herself. 

When she hears her little son gush about Ser Eddard and what he has learned, and she sees how easily the knight handles her boy, with such a gentle, guiding hand, she cannot help but think it a shame that Ser Eddard will never have children of his own. She has heard rumors of a bastard boy tucked away in Winterfell, born during the war, but they are rumors only. And in any case, a bastard is not a trueborn son, one that could be guided and reared to inherit land and titles. There are few knights more honorable and true, but she cannot help but think he is a man made for fatherhood. 

When she curls up to sleep upon her plump feather mattress, the soft silks kissing her warm cheek, her treacherous mind reminds her that she could have been the woman to give him those children, in another world. For the first time, she does not stop her thoughts short, but instead allows herself to wonder how her life would have been different if she had been wed to Brandon’s younger brother, if he were the man in her bed. 

As the fantasies lull her to sleep, Catelyn is for once glad to be left alone. 

\--

She knows she must let her son learn and grow, and she loves him no less for it, but watching Robb wave about a wooden sword makes her long desperately for another babe to cradle to her breast. 

Robert visits her about once a fortnight, whenever he briefly tires of whoring and remembers that he has a pair of dutiful legs he can fall between. She always greets him graciously, even when he comes to her drunk, even when he reeks of a whore’s perfume, even when he breathes the name of another woman while refusing to look at her. It is her duty as his wife and queen, but it is not something she finds pleasurable and so she never seeks him out on her own, only receiving him as she must, with a smile and her consent. 

So he is surprised, when she arrives at his chambers one evening, Ser Barristan allowing her to pass with a respectful tip of his head. He stares at her agape with a horn of ale halfway to his lips, and Catelyn can tell by the redness in his eyes that it is not his first drink of the evening. “I want another child,” she says without preamble, as soon as the door is closed. “We must lie together more often.” 

His lip curls in distaste – Robert is still a romantic at heart, and he despises when she speaks in such frank, dispassionate terms. Yet there is little of him that stirs her to such frivolities anymore. She is not the same girl that Brandon Stark kissed on the banks of the Trident, the child-woman full of idealistic dreams. “It is our duty to the realm,” she reminds Robert, and his frown deepens – he hates even more when she reminds him of his responsibilities as king. “One heir is not enough to secure a throne.” 

“And you are always the most dutiful of ladies, aren’t you, my queen?” he asks sourly. Catelyn does not even flinch – his bad tempers do not phase her. They have little to do with her; most times he does not even seem to notice that she is there. He will offer a mumbled apology in the morn, while refusing to meet her eye, and still nothing between them will change. 

“Yes,” she answers frankly, and Robert puts his drink down on the table with a large clang and a heavy sigh. 

“Then let’s to bed, and make a little spare princeling. For our _kingdom_ ,” he declares, with a rueful shake of his head, as though he does not know how he found himself in such a position. 

Robert rarely bothers with gentleness anymore, and even less so when he is in his cups, which is nearly always. She does not think he is purposefully cruel, just careless, but she is always surprised anew at the pain when he shoves her legs apart and pushes into her. She bites her lip to keep from crying out, and she knows her silence irks him – Robert best likes the whores who moan and gasp beneath him, who make him feel as though he is fucking after a good fight again. But while she knows it is her duty to go to his bed and let him do as he will, Catelyn cannot bring herself to worry about his ego when he does not spare the barest of thoughts for her comfort. 

She turns her face away as he labors above her, disappearing into memories. Usually she thinks of Brandon Stark, of the way he would smile at her in those long-ago days at Riverrun, lascivious and full of promises she did not quite understand at the time. Those memories are tinged with grief and regret, and she wonders if a man will ever look at her that way again. 

Sometimes, unbidden, she will think of Eddard and his dark grey eyes. The way they look at her when they walk together and when he returns Robb to her care is not the same as his brother’s once did, but there is something there that strikes to her heart. In her loneliness, it is enough. 

It is Ser Eddard himself that she encounters as she leaves the king’s chambers once they have finished, studiously avoiding Ser Barristan’s eyes as she slips past him, as she tugs the sleeves of her dressing gown over her wrists to hide the red marks that she knows will be bruises by the morn. Eddard waits with a torch only a few paces down the corridor, and Catelyn feels her face flush at the reminder that nothing in her life is private anymore. 

“Your Grace,” Ser Eddard greets, offering his arm to escort her, but her emotions are laid too raw and she flinches away from him. His brow furrows, but ever silent and stoic, ever mindful of his position, he does not question her. She keeps her head high as they march down the hall, and tells herself that she is not the first queen to bear such treatment, that her predecessor bore far worse, if the tales are to be believed. 

At least Robert is not mad. Not yet. 

They do not speak again until they reach her chambers, and she is surprised when he quietly asks, “Did he hurt you?” His fingers brush her wrist, over the skin exposed when she raised her hand to unlatch her door. His touch is gentle, soft as a whisper, and the unexpected tenderness brings tears to her eyes. She is only glad that the corridor is dark. He likely does not see her expression before she tips her face down as she pulls her wrist back, tugging her dressing gown back over the red marks, the fingerprints left upon her skin. 

She could speak truly, and tell him it is no worse than usual, but she has no desire to see the resulting pity in his eyes. “It is no matter,” she says instead, and she can tell by the way his jaw tightens that he does not agree. 

“I will speak with him,” he promises, and Catelyn does not know if she should feel sorrier for him, that he truly believes Robert will change just by virtue of an old friend’s advice, or for herself, that she already knows otherwise. 

“Do not trouble yourself on my behalf, ser,” she replies coolly. The last thing she needs in her marriage is more disharmony; now, especially, that would prove nothing but detrimental to her plans. She will bear Robert’s pawing without complaint if it puts another babe in her belly, another child in her arms to love and cherish. 

“It isn’t _right_ ,” he says. His eyes blaze even in the dim light of the hall, and he cups under her elbow rather than touch her injured wrist again. If he were a man of lesser morals, she suspects he would have pulled her into his arms at that moment. But he is Ser Eddard, and even this simple touch is more than he would normally presume. “You are his queen, you are…” he breaks off, looking away from her, and whatever else he thinks Catelyn is, she supposes she will never know. “He should treat you better,” he finishes quietly. “I will speak with him, I swear it.” 

Her heart aches for him at that moment, silly as it may be. He is a good man, after all, and he is determined to drag Robert into goodness with him. Perhaps his words will make some sort of difference, but somehow Catelyn doubts that anyone could sway Robert from his path of self-pity and anger. “You can’t save everyone, you know,” she says softly, and she does not know if she is referring to Robert or herself. It is difficult to be certain when she does not know if Eddard would speak to the king for her sake, or the sake of the man he had called ‘brother.’ 

Something flashes in those grey eyes of his, something that takes him far away for a moment. “I cannot save anyone, it seems,” he answers.


End file.
